Chance
by GC-IC-MPD-ADHD
Summary: The Potter-Weasley clan is famous all over the world for their great services during the 2nd Great War. But that doesn't mean that Harry and the Weasleys necessarily tell their children about the people they fought and the side that lost. Here is a one-shot on a sixteen-year-old Louis Weasley and what he discovers one evening. My 1st story please review!


**Chance**

It was in the upper most attic area of Number 12 Grimmauld Place where Louis found the photograph.

He hadn't been snooping around like he usually did when it came to generations-old junk— in fact, his Uncle Harry had indulged his slight fetish by requesting his help with that year's spring cleaning, which was finally taking place at Aunt Ginny's fiery insisting.

The House of the Blacks, or as it was casually known amongst the Potter-Weasley clan, The Black House, was still the most dreariest of places, with the musty smells of lingering darkness hovering in the hallways and the peeling wallpaper that had refused to be forcibly ripped off due to the strong enchantments that had been cast probably since it's conception.

Walburga Black continued to rave and screech from her irremovable portrait, although her voice had finally begun to die down in defeat, and many other faces peeked out from various paintings and pictures that exhibited, along with their aristocratic beauty, a haze of gloom, desperation and despair in their mostly dark grey eyes, despite their upturned noses and heads held high.

Louis' mother barely ever let him visit the estranged house; Fleur Weasley didn't want her last child— her baby, to be scarred by the vile memories that drifted through the often empty building, for even though he knew them not, the evil and cruelty of the Blacks was something that was almost tangible and thus with possible mental and physical effects.

Still, the haunted mansion was something of awe for the red-haired 6th year, for the fact that the building collected it's occupants' essence so thoroughly as to frighten people as stubborn as his mother and aunts Angelina and Audrey was more fascinating than anything he had witnessed in a long time.

Hogwarts was empty for the Easter holidays— most of the students had come back to London via the Hogwarts express, for the nonsensical and sudden Muggle bombings had scared them into meeting their families even if they hadn't planned to before hand.

It was his immense luck that it was around this time that Aunt Ginny had finally put her foot down, and had forced Uncle Harry into unlocking the semi-abandoned building for some drastically needed cleaning.

Of course, almost all of his cousins had been pulled into the back and sweat breaking scheme, and of course, no one had wanted to work in the attic. That had left Louis with the task, since he had been the only one who hadn't objected to being stuck inside a stuffy and dusty space that was even more gloomier than the rest of the house, if that were possible.

But the part-Veela teenager knew that there was no other place he'd rather be than the Black attic. It wasn't as small as he had expected; yet, the junk that had accumulated there over the past few centuries was enough to make him feel like he was dancing on fire inside a cupboard.

Whilst lifting a dusty and heavy carton, he had come across a folded piece of parchment on the floor; upon inspection it turned out to be a crumpled envelope, with the initials BB written on the upper side, along with the year 1970, both in a graceful cursive handwriting and in sharp black ink. It was inside that envelope he discovered the picture.

Louis had never seen anything more hauntingly beautiful in his life. A young woman— couldn't have been more than 25 years of age, stared up at him through heavily hooded eyes in a decidedly seductive manner.

Her jet black hair consisted of sharp, wild curls that cascaded down her back, to her visibly narrow and tapered waist; the sunlight from the window behind her caught in her strands, turning them into a flashing fire of sorts. Her back was perfectly straight and figure poised; slender hands clasped on her lap in front of her, all completed the look of practiced elegance and good breeding.

Her pale skin contrasted sharply against her ebony hair and blood red lips, which lifted ever so lazily into a low smile that eventually flashed perfectly aligned, white teeth. But it was her eyes that truly drew him in.

The stormy grey inherited by centuries of Black ancestors held a different kind of spark to them— something Louis had never seen before in all the people he had met. They held a challenge of sorts, but he couldn't figure out exactly what she was daring the viewer to do. All he knew was that even though the woman was not a Veela, she was a Black, and despite the horrible incest around the blood line and intermarriages, the woman in the photograph was more of a goddess than his mother's relations could be.

With tremendous care, he brought his find down later that evening, taking care to hide it in one of his pockets as he side-apparated with his elder sister Dom back home, into the arms of their worried mother, with their father chuckling in the back ground.

Despite Bill's finding his wife's agitation amusing, he couldn't help but notice the way Louis was discreetly trying to tug away from his mother's embrace whilst keeping his hand behind his back, which was suspiciously straight. Raising one eyebrow, his eyes trailed his son's retreating figure as the teenage boy made his way up to his room, but to his confusion, Bill Weasley saw nothing.

Locking his door as quietly as possible, Louis fished the envelope very carefully out of his back pocket, and was relieved to find that it wasn't wrinkled in the slightest. The enchantress seemed completely unruffled by the shift in the atmosphere, although at a much closer inspection, the 6th Year student noticed that the woman's countenance looked much lighter now that it was out of the Black House.

There was no denying it; the Black lady truly was a vision. Louis couldn't help but question who she was, what her role had been in the 1st and 2nd wars, and whether her inside had matched the beauty her outside represented. He thought of casually asking any of his many Weasley elder relations about her, but came to the conclusion that it was better not knowing who she was than receiving more than one lecture on how he shouldn't have swiped the picture in the first place— Merlin knew that his aunts and uncles LOVED to scold the next generation, consisting of their own children, who usually made mistakes, at least according to them.

Louis fell back on to his large bed with photograph in hand and a contemplative look on his face as he struggled to remember who this mystery woman looked like, since he was almost completely sure that he knew someone with relatively familiar features...

Giving up, the 16-year-old answered Dom's call downstairs for supper and after spending quite a while observing his unusually tidy room for the most mundane yet perfect spot to stash the envelope, finally settled on placing his mystery woman under a pile of school notes on top of his book case, knowing that no one would disturb the Black aristocrat there.

The room was left by it's occupant shortly thereafter; Bellatrix Black's once-gorgeous features peeked out of the half closed envelope with the indifference fully expected of a mere photograph, however, instead of finishing off into the lazy half-smile as was supposed, her thin red lips stretched into an even wider grin as her heavily-lidded stormy grey eyes fell upon the name engraved on the boy's dresser.

Weasley.


End file.
